“Yes, and very bad. It wouldn’t do at all. But before moving on, I thought I’d better look around a little. That hill over there is sandstone, and a superficial examination led me to think that the sandstone dips under this spot.”
“That might mean a very fair quality of water.”
“That’s what I think. So I inserted a larger casing, to shut out this sulphur water, and went on down.”
“How far?”
“A thousand feet. I’m expecting to strike it any moment now.”
“Your men seem to think they have struck something. They’re calling you.”
The engineers returned to the well in time to see the water gushing to the surface.
“There’s enough of it,” muttered Scribner.
The chief bent over it and shook his head. “Smell it, Harry,” he said.
Scribner threw himself on the ground and drank up a mouthful from the stream. But he promptly spit it out.